My First Warning

I awakened on the floor next to my bed. I'm really annoyed to see I once again fell asleep before showering or getting ready for bed. I climb to my feet so I can head over to the bathroom to at least brush my teeth. I pause before I leave the room to make sure I pop one of my pills. I swallow that and then I head out  and brush my teeth. Once I’ve finished that I realize I don’t have enough time before the morning meeting to take a shower. I just have to shrug it off and hope I’ve got nothing to do today so I could end up showering.
I make my way into the hall towards the elevator when I begin to hear a ringing sound. It surprises me and I look around looking for where it is coming from, I look all over but I can’t see anything that should be able to ring. I follow the sound of ringing until I’m running my hand along the way. To my surprise I do find a cabinet in the wall, it’s been painted over and doesn't stick out much at all, I had never even noticed it was there. I pull the door open and see that the ringing was from a landline phone in the wall. I pick up the phone and look around to see if anyone else is around who has a voice and can actually use a phone. I’m the only one around, so I place the phone against my ear and listen hoping they’ll know I picked up the phone whoever they are.
There is silence on the other end, I poorly snap my finger into the mic hoping they hear it. I’m starting to think about hanging up since I need to get to the morning meeting, that’s when Fool’s Knight appears behind me lifting the phone towards itself. “Knight speaking, what do you want?”
I would find it funny if I wasn’t so shocked to see Fool’s Knight appear on his own. A response suddenly comes despite there being no way they should be able to hear Fool’s Knight. “Sophia, just listen, this is important.” Fool’s Knight lowers the phone towards me, I place the phone right up to my ear.
“Pay attention Sophia, listen closely.” The voice says. I begin to recognize that voice, is that D’Claire-na? “You need to lock in, focus, today is gonna be a Spawn fight you can’t take lightly.” I’m freaking out at this odd cryptic warning, and how is D’Claire-na calling me on a wall phone!?
“Sophia, this one is gonna be an S rank equivalent, like none you’ve ever seen or imagined. MGI is testing you girls and you need to pass it, this isn’t a test you can fail, do you understand?”
I don’t know how to respond, even if I could speak what are you even supposed to say after hearing that? Fool Knight leans in to respond. “My lady doesn’t need your warning, she will always perform her best.” It feels nice knowing how much Fool’s Knight believes in me, even if he’s just an imaginary friend ability thing.
“I need to go Soapy, look just- things get exciting bad if they don’t go right. MGI is coming up with some things that are different and you don’t want things different right now. Yeah, uh, D’Claire-na out! You never saw me or heard this!” The line drops out and a buzzing fills the receiver.
I place the phone back on the hook and close the hidden box fully returning it to how I found it. There isn’t really anything else for me to do but go into the elevator and head down to the morning meeting. I can’t help continuing to think about what D’Claire-na was trying to warn me about, even without a warning I would take any Spawn fight seriously, so why was there a need to call me? I’ll be extra alert if this mission really is happening, D’Claire-na seems to have good intel on the goings-on of our building at least, her warnings are worth listening to.
I step out of the elevator as it arrives and enter the meeting room. It’s just Miss Gretchen and Tikki at the moment. I raise a hand and greet them both as I take a seat. Claire arrives next, then Marcia a few minutes after that. With all of us gathered Miss Gretchen begins the morning meeting.“Morning ladies, today’s agenda is pretty slim once again.”
She turns to me and Marcia, “First off, congratulations on a job well done Marica and Sophia, I got a glowing review from the team in Magnolia County.” Tikk, Clarice, and even King give us some applause. I can’t help being a little shyly embarrassed to get applause for not actually doing much of anything this time around.
“Next up,” Miss Gretchen continues, “it seems your team’s first merchandise has become available. I believe Tikki showed all of you your poster, well that poster is now possible to purchase by the public. Keep up the good work and you might just get more.” It was exciting just getting to imagine someone might hang a poster of us on their wall, I mean just how cool is that!
“That concluded today’s meeting. All of you try to stay out of trouble today. I'll let you know if anything comes up.” Miss Gretchen climbs to her feet and promptly leaves.
I sat there confused, she didn’t say anything about a mission. A big mission too, at least, that’s how D’Claire-na had made it sound. If she knew about it then it had to already be planned, right? So are they just not going to tell us to catch us off guard? Surely that can’t be right. D’Claire-na must have given me bad information, even someone really tapped into secrets can’t be right every single time I guess. I shrug it off instead just being glad that means I’ll get to take a shower.
I get up from my seat and head for the elevator, Clarice ends up riding the same elevator, we don't exchange any words. I head into my room and begin picking out a new outfit for the day. Grabbing a new jumper skirt and blouse, then picking some regular stockings along with a change of underwear. I place it all into a little bag and head for the showers. When I get there I am extra careful in deciding where I am going to be placing my bag. I can't trust the benches outside the showers anymore, so I end up hanging my bag off the shower stall and then getting on my tippy toes to reposition the shower head so my bag doesn't get wet at all.
I wash myself off, scrubbing myself down before I get to shampoo and conditioning my hair. Once I'm satisfied with the smoothness of my wet hair I shut the water off and begin drying myself off with a towel. I change into my new clothes besides the socks while inside the shower, then I sit down on the outside bench to pull my stockings on. I leave my wet towel hanging on a hook, and head back to my room.
Since I've got the time I end up giving myself the fullest experience and sitting down at my vanity and properly doing my hair. I'm not entirely sure what I want to go for when I sit down, but I mess around with my hair a bit trying to do different braids, but none of them really look right. Maybe someone else is around who could do it, like Tikki. Before I try and get her I do a little light foundation, I don't wanna end up covering my freckles so I work around them. I do a little mascara as well as giving myself some tiny eyeliner wings. Once I feel happy with it I get up and test my luck if Tikki is available to do something with my hair.
I knock on her door and she pretty promptly responds by opening the door. "Oh, hey Sophia, don't you look nice." She smiles.
I hold up my board, "WOULD YOU MIND DOING MY HAIR?"
"Of course I don't mind!" She grabs onto my arm pulling me into her room closing the door behind me. "Now what were we thinking? I've got a curling iron if you wanna try putting some curls?"
"I WAS THINKING ABOUT BRAIDS THAT YOU THOUGHT WOULD SUIT ME, BUT IF YOU HAVE OTHER IDEAS I DON'T MIND TRYING THEM." I write.
She thought for a moment, "Well I could do something like a double Dutch Braid? Oh, or what if I did an Infinity Braid! That would look cute on you!" I try to begin writing a response but Tikki is still going on about her ideas. "Oh wait, your hair has really good volume, maybe we just go with some pretty Twin Braids!" She's suddenly darting off towards her bed, "Hold on Sophia let me grab some magazines, we can flip through them and pick one out, I can figure out any you like if I don't already know how to do them!"
Tikki leaps onto her bed and curls over the other side hanging upside down digging under her bed, coming back up with a handful of magazines. She runs back over to me grabbing my hand and pulling me over to a little carpet she has laid out where she sits down and pulls me along with her. "Here, start with this one, oh and this one too!" She pushes magazines into my hands. I take note as I open them that these magazines seem kinda old, but also spread pretty wide across the period from the 80s all the way to the 00s era. Tikki lies down against a bean bag as she flips through her own magazines, occasionally flashing me with different hairstyles as she talks about them. "Oh I wish I had someone with the right hair volume and length to try and give them a Farrah Fawcett hairstyle! Ugh I wanna try a blunt fringe along with all that layering!"
Suddenly she pounces at me, "Okay okay, so it's not summer exactly yet but what if we did a summer shoujo style. Like the two small braids on either side, leave some long side parts, then we tie everything else back with a clip into a bun and add in like a fun flower or something!" I don't really get what she means, "I WAS THINKING SOMETHING MORE CASUAL." I write.
"Fine fine, but what if we just go with a Y2K Spiky Bun? I mean then you could wear a cute hat too! Basically just starting with a ponytail, doing a few little twists, and adding a bun clip and bang throw a hat on and you're ready to go!" 
"FINE! DO IT, LET'S JUST GO WITH THAT ONE!" I write, hoping to move on from this never-ending changing of her mind. "Yay!" She cheers as she latches onto my back and pulls me into her lap as she begins pulling on my hair. She takes a band and pulls my hair through it, then pulls half of it out folding it to make a loop. She then curled the loop and took a larger alligator clip clipping onto the loop holding it up by the base of the tail. She takes her curling iron and uses it to really straighten the two front parts coming down from the side of my forehead down to my chest. She sprays me with some sort of hairspray on the back of my hair where the end of the tail is, then presses a hat down on my head. She jumps up to her feet and stands in front of me circling as she admires her work. "Oh yeah, that's totally cute!"
She scrambles over to a dresser and returns back with a hand mirror. I nod in approval as I check multiple angles, It turned out way cuter than anything I could have thought up. "It would look even better I bet if you threw on a cardigan or something. Have you ever worn plaid?" 
I shook my head, "NO PLAID YET." She laughed at my thick lines, "Well you haven't gotten to enjoy a second round of clothing shopping yet, I'm sure your style will be next level by the time you get another spree!" I had to admit I had been thinking about how nice it would be if I could get some more money already so I could buy more clothes. Don't get me wrong, I love my jumper skirts, but I wouldn't mind wearing some new sorts of things as well. Like overalls, or this cute top I saw called a milkmaid top.
Suddenly a loud shrieking noise began piercing our ears. Tikki immediately seemed to understand what it was and gripped my arm really tightly, dragging me forward out of her room. I didn't have time to even ask what was going on, I kept making confused hand motions but she never looked back at me, just continuing to pull me forward. We entered the main hallway where Clarice with King was already there running for the elevator. The shrieking seemed to only be getting louder as it rang in my ears. We piled into the elevator, the doors almost closing before Marcia thrust an arm between the doors joining us. The whole team rode the elevator down to the garage, as we went down the shrieking finally ended. 
When we reached the garage Miss Gretchen was standing right in front of us on the other side of the doors. She tossed a cigarette down on the ground grinding it with her heel. "Well ladies, here's a lucky break. Spawn of course, a real dangerous one. And lucky us we're the closest to it. Normally a higher ranked team would be assigned it, but we've got proximity dibs until that higher ranked team shows up. Good chance to prove yourself and what not." She motioned for us to follow her. "Hop in, we roll."
As we climb into the van I'm hit with two thoughts of equal value to me. One, D'Claire-na wasn't lying and she knew about this Spawn appearing somehow? Could she actually be connected to the Spawn in some way? I know she is able to speak and communicate with them, but I just didn't really imagine it was to the extent that she was working with them. Two, man I am going to look good for this fight. Like, wow what good luck the day I really do my makeup and have Tikki do my hair real nice is the day we get to really stand in the brightest spotlight. If this foe is as serious as it sounds based on it being not the best matchup for our ranks, that's gotta mean none of us are ending up just standing on the side lines! Me and Fool's Knight will be able to really shine and beat the heck out of whatever sort of scary Spawn is terrorizing the good people of wherever we are headed! 
As we are driving Miss Gretchen without turning her head to face me suddenly says something to me. “Hey Sophia, grab that small white box from the back, would ya? It’s for you, little something from the lab geeks made for you when you fight. Keep forgetting to give it to you but now is as good a time as ever.”
I do as she asked and lean over the back finding a white box. I open it up and find two nicely folded gloves inside, they have a thickness to them as I lift them from their box. The knuckles especially seem to have something hard against them, I recognize it as something to help me when I’m punching. I vaguely recall hearing something about getting gloves back when I first took the Magical Girl exam against that wild Spawn.I slide the gloves on, opening and closing my hand as I admire them. I feel even more ready for the coming fight than before, now I can really punch all out without worrying about how badly my hands are gonna get messed up! We continue down the highway, we don't end up having to go too much further. We end up heading into the nearest large city where a much larger MGI group is stationed. I wonder what they are up to that they ended up being away during a big attack like this?
We pull down a deserted street, we can already see smoke and the signs of destruction having occurred here. The roads are warm from panicked feet evacuating down them not even an hour ago. I can't spot any Spawn as of yet as I climb out from the back of the van. 
Miss Gretchen doesn't give us any sort of guidance like which direction it should be, but Tikki begins jogging down the road with confidence, and so the rest of us follow her.
I could not have ever had a clue just what we were about to encounter.